Monthly Archives: November 2013

I love to give presents. Seriously! Sometimes these are purchased gifts (I especially love to support local artists and retailers if possible) and sometimes they are things I have made myself.

This year I started entering some of Spoonflower’s weekly fabric design contests and putting some of my designs up for sale through my store. To sell designs, you need to order proofs in the form of an 8″ x 8″ printed fabric swatch to test the quality. With a growing pile of finished proofs, I decided to start using the fabric swatches for personalized projects that would be great as gifts and let me be more sustainable.

My first project is a needle book design that utilizes a full Spoonflower swatch of my “Sew, My Darling” fabric design (small pattern version) and is pretty easy to make! It has an inside pocket on both inside front and back covers and 4 felt pages. I didn’t add too many things inside, but this is definitely a project that could be customized in many ways!

I will be posting a step-by-step needle book tutorial later this week or early next week 🙂

These past few weeks have been quite a whirlwind! Last week was the final in Lilla’s MATS course (I plan to do a separate MATS debrief post for the entire experience later!) which focused on party paper. Now.. What is that, you may ask? Party paper is a category within the Gift Market entirely devoted to paper goods – paper plates, paper napkins, gift wrap, invitations, and so on.

Our assignment was to reference the theme of Ukrainian and Bavarian folk art and create our own party paper designs. I worked on created stylized artwork that still read as my aesthetic but pulled elements from what makes folk art unique– the subject matter, layout, selective colors – and interpreted it in my own way.

I ended up having a blast doing these pieces. I think the rooster looks hilarious, he’s kind of got a cheeky look to him (and a bit of a booty! hah). Each piece has unique artwork – no icons are repeated between the plate, napkin, and cup. I also tried a different way to add texture to my illustrations this week and really enjoyed the end result. Florals are an artwork type that I have not explored much, but this project definitely has increased my interest in working with them. I’d like to try out some surface patterns next!

All rights reserved. All designs on this website are copyright of Ashley Lotecki unless otherwise stated. No images, graphics, or text on this site may be reproduced or distributed without written permission of the artist, Ashley Lotecki. If you would like to discuss licensing any designs please email hello (at) ashleylotecki (dot) com